Children’s Perspectives on Robot Futures: A Speculative Participatory Approach to Child Wellbeing

As emerging technologies such as AI systems and social robots become embedded in children’s daily lives, it is vital to consider how children themselves imagine robots. Advances in social robotics have generated new opportunities for assessing child wellbeing, but much of this work remains framed by adult researcher-centered views of what counts as beneficial. Drawing on the distinction between adult child perspectives and children’s own perspectives from childhood studies, we report a speculative participatory workshop with a child public involvement panel that explores future social robots for supporting children’s wellbeing. Children took part as co-researchers rather than research subjects, and their discussions highlight insights including everyday care, emotional companionship, and transparency about robot identity. We use these insights to inform future work on child-robot interaction and child wellbeing, and to connect children’s perspectives to debates around ethics and AI policy.